Over the next weeks units shipped from Mestex Dallas will begin to include a small feature that we believe will provide large benefits to our contractor customers.

A common problem in the field with installation, operation & maintenance (IOM) documents is that they are misplaced, lost, or left in the weather and become unusable.  Over the last few years we have taken steps to make replacing those documents a bit easier by posting them on our Sales Assistant website for downloading.  While this is a big improvement over calling Dallas during business hours and ordering a document, it still requires the user to contact us and then log in to Sales Assistant for the download.

Starting July 1, equipment shipped from Dallas will continue to contain a printed copy of the IOM but it will also have a new label that includes a “Microsoft Tag” image.  Microsoft Tags are basically customized, square, barcodes that can be read by cell phones, and some tablet devices, using the free “tag reader” software from Microsoft at http://gettag.mobi.

After downloading the free reader app, if the service contractor has a cell phone with a camera he will be able to aim the camera at the tag and the software will automatically launch the phone’s web browser to open a PDF copy of the proper IOM.  IOM documents will then be available to a contractor or service technician 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  And since the IOMs are stored in the Mestek corporate “cloud”, any updates will be automatic and it will not be necessary to keep up with revisions in the field.

Of course, once the file is opened on the phone most devices will allow the document to be saved and transferred to a computer for printing if desired.  We hope this new feature will make life a bit easier for our customers.

It is not uncommon for corporate or medical facility server rooms to grow increasingly dense as the need for data storage and transfer grows with a business.  The end result can be a server room that starts to run hotter than the company would like.  This is especially true when the server room is built into a leased space that was never designed for the types of heat loads that a room full of servers will create.  One solution that is seeing more application is to add a Koldwave air-cooled portable air conditioner to the room.  In this case the Koldwave unit was added to the end of the rack cold aisle in a semi-permanent installation.  The result was a relatively low cost answer to the overheating that was also easy to install.

Most companies today require some sort of small server room to house their network computers or even their digital phone system equipment.  Trimming temperatures in a room not originally designed for that purpose can be accomplished using Koldwave Portable Air Conditioners.

This is an actual case photo of a typical small business server room.  This 144 square foot room houses 4 servers, 2 routers, 2 switches, 1 PC, and a UPS system.  By installing a 3 ton Koldwave air-cooled air conditioner the room temperature was reduced by roughly 25 degrees...enough to put the room temperature well within the latest ASHRAE guidelines for server equipment.  Note that the Koldwave unit uses the optional vent duct to push the hot condenser air out of the server room...further enhancing the conditions in the room.

A February 22 article in the Data Center Knowledge emag published more information regarding the third revision of the ASHRAE "Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments".  According to the Data Center Knowledge article the expanded ranges for operating temperatures and humidities may be a way for ASHRAE to catch up with the recommendations of the major players in the IT industry.  Google, Intel, Microsoft, and HP are all quoted as praising the higher operating ranges.

In fact, Christian Belady, the General Manager of Data Center Research at Microsoft Global Foundation Services, was quoted as saying "Most companies in the cloud business are already procuring servers that operate well outside of the ASHRAE specs to allow for aggressive economization to drive much greater efficiencies then what is achievable using the ASHRAE specs,"

The new ASHRAE guidelines define four classes of operating environment with classes 3 and 4 recommended to use outside air only for cooling.  Class 1 and 2 are defined as typical data center server environments, although Mr. Belady's comments might suggest that the big data center players have moved past this already. 

However, the ASHRAE allowable range:

• o class 1 is now 89.6 degrees F,
• o class 2 or 3 is now 95 degrees F,
• o class 4 is now 104 degrees F.

The demand for data processing is growing exponentially with the increasing use of "smartphones", tablets, and "cloud computing".  It is also becoming a critical factor for hospital and medical center server rooms as they try to keep up with the processing demands of electronic medical records.  The result is server rooms that are overheating as more and more processors are crammed into smaller and smaller spaces with HVAC systems that were never designed to handle the cooling load.  Koldwave portable cooling systems can help solve that problem.  The new ASHRAE guidelines allow server room operators to install a relatively small Koldwave unit that will "trim the temperatures" down to the recommended levels.